


Feed a Stray Cat

by paintedfences



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: And Tozer needs a wife, M/M, Ned Little needs a husband, Ned is Not Okay, Ned loves it, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Thick-set Tozer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:27:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25612051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedfences/pseuds/paintedfences
Summary: Solomon Tozer leans back and sighs, throwing an arm over the back his chair. ‘D’ I ever tell you how much I love your cookin’, Ned?’ It is one in the morning, he is quite drunk, and in the lamplight his throat bobs as he finishes the last of the second pint of ale Ned has poured him.
Relationships: Lt Edward Little/Sgt Solomon Tozer
Comments: 35
Kudos: 73





	1. Chapter 1

Solomon Tozer leans back and sighs, throwing an arm over the back his chair. ‘D’ I ever tell you how much I love your cookin’, Ned?’ It is one in the morning, he is quite drunk, and in the lamplight his throat bobs as he finishes the last of the second pint of ale Ned has poured him. The food is just a simple beef sandwich, but the bread is thick-cut doorstop, and Ned has not spared the mustard, nor the butter.

Since he has been back in London, Tozer has appeared at his door a total of eight times, each time drunk, reeling a little against the walls, his steps heavy as he follows Ned down the passage to his modest rented rooms. Each time he has grown bolder, like a stray cat; a great ginger tom that stalks through the unfamiliar space, watchful but curious, sniffing the air. 

Ned hasn’t yet quite worked out what Tozer wants.

Their first meeting was pure chance. He was stumbling through the East End, a little drunk, a little dull with laudanum (for he does not sleep now, his dreams are haunted places), and then there out of the pre-dawn mists loomed Tozer - familiar, terrifying, and for some reason glad to see him.

The conversation when they’d got back to his rooms was awkward, more silence than words, more Tozer’s hands wringing the brim of his hat as he talked in slips and scattered sentences, his eyes far away. 

He’d slept the night on Ned’s settee that night, with his greatcoat - shabby, Ned had noted - pulled over him and his large, muddy boots crossed on the arm. And he’d left in the blue-black cold of the morning without a word, before Ned had woken.

Now, he talks comfortably at Ned as if Ned is one of his old bosom friends, as sure of Ned’s listening ear as he is of the warmth of his rooms, mean though they are, and the bottles of ale Ned buys, but does not drink himself. He does not see many people, these days.

He does not know where Tozer sleeps when he is not here; he does not ask. He is mostly silent himself nowadays, it has to be said, having left the art of conversation somewhere back in Hell. The Captain chided him on it, at their last meeting, a walk in Hyde park, perhaps two months hence. (He would not have the Captain to his rooms, not for all the tea in China, and he likes less and less enclosed spaces crowded with people, with hands to shake and things required of him.)

‘Cat got your tongue, Ned?’ he’d asked, while they strolled around the pond, women in their walking gowns gliding past them like swans; unreal, otherworldly.

‘I seem to have left it behind, Captain,’ he’d said.

And when Crozier had said nothing, but continued to walk with him in expectant silence, a hand on his elbow, he found himself saying, ‘I fear I - I left most everything there, Sir. In fact I - I’m not entirely certain who it is has come back.’

‘Call me Francis, Ned,’ Crozier had said, and Ned had nodded, though he’d said nothing, distracted by the gentleness in Crozier’s voice, the brief rough squeeze of his fingers in the crook of his arm.

Tozer is not gentle.

But he is familiar; in every sense of the word. He is leaning back in his chair, his cheeks flushed with beer, his feet in their muddy boots crossed on the seat of the third rickety wooden chair at the table. His eyes are glittering in the lamplight, and as Ned rises and takes the empty bottles to the sideboard, Tozer licks a finger and draws it over the crumbs on the plate, puts it between his lips and sucks it, keeping his eyes on Ned’s. 

Ned feels a heat rise in him; perhaps he does know what Tozer is here for, after all.

‘You keep a fine table,’ Tozer says, stretching out, hands behind his head, the fabric of his shirt straining a little over his stomach. ‘You’ll make some man a fine wife.’ 

The words make his mouth go dry; Tozer’s put on flesh he’s noticed, and there is something in it, something in how he says the word wife that make Ned’s blood beat hard and fast. Whatever he sees in his face, Tozer clumps his boots to the floor and rises to his feet, almost sauntering over to where Ned stands with the bottles in his hands. Ned puts them down, and then Tozer is crowding him into the corner, taking Ned’s chin in his hands, claiming his lips and tongue with eager, urgent heat.

Ned falls into it like falling through the air, his face is burning, his skin is burning, he presses into Tozer with savage need. How long has it been? Oh, so long - so very, very long, and Tozer is grunting his approval, his hands going to Ned’s waistcoat, fiddling with the buttons inelegantly, trying to push it off - Ned puts a hand on his arm, stilling him, and says against his mouth, ‘My room.’

The little attic room is icy, the bed is narrow, but the candle Ned brings in cheers it; the flame sends shadows leaping for the corners as Ned places it on the bedside table, and then Tozer is on him, pushing him back against the closed door with his big body, his mouth wet and warm on Ned’s, large hands tugging at his clothes.

‘No,’ mutters Ned, and Tozer half-pauses, ear cocked, and then Ned slips out of his grasp, slips behind him, and when Tozer turns Ned presses him back against the door, his leg firm against the hardness under Tozer’s trousers, his hands clenching in Tozer’s shirt, settling on his sides. 

Ned wants to unwrap him like a present. 

Meeting Tozer’s eyes, which are slightly surprised, slightly wary, he puts his hands to where Tozer’s collar gapes, uncouth as the man himself, and lets his intention show. Tozer grins then, and slides one bootheel up behind himself on the door, angling his crotch, the hard bulge of it, towards Ned. ‘Go on then,’ he says, and Ned instantly presses his face to Tozer’s throat, to the v of bare skin, and runs his teeth over it, and when Tozer breathes in sharply and his head falls back, Ned licks up his throat, tasting salt, and Tozer groans.

Ned’s fingers slip and shake on Tozer’s shirt buttons; when he gets to the one over his belly, he slides two fingers in through the fabric, feels the heavy softness there, and grinds himself against Tozer until they’re both gasping. He gets the rest of the buttons undone, spreads Tozer’s shirt open and feasts with his mouth and his lips and his tongue, so hard he is aching, so hard he might actually die. 

Ned pushes Tozer’s shirt off his shoulders, steps back a few inches as his hands quickly work on his own clothes, stripping off his waistcoat, his shirt, leaving his trousers on, but unbuttoned - an invitation. Stepping back close so that Tozer’s warm breath hits the chilled skin of his chest, Ned looks up at his flushed face, then freezes as Tozer’s hand slides up the inside of his thigh, cups his hard prick, presses the heel of his hand down against it. 

Ned lets out a sound that makes Tozer grin, and takes Tozers hand from where it lies and brings his wrist up to his lips, mouthing along the tender veins and tendons of the underside, then skating up along his thick, well muscled arms to his shoulders. 

He is solidly built, more so than when they were in that place together. Ned can feel the density of muscle in his arms, his chest - and now with this layer of plush, this glorious softness that covers over his chest and arms and sides, his modest but definite belly, a little swollen from beer... Ned fancies Tozer could pick him up bodily and fling him through the window with no more effort than throwing off a boot, and at the thought Ned moans low in his throat and puts his teeth in Tozers shoulder, sucks hard and lets his fingers go to Tozer’s belt, the thick brown leather buckled around his hips, his muscular thighs. 

He holds them there as Tozer hisses out a breath and grabs Ned’s arse. ‘Go on.’

Ned starts down to his knees, pressing sucking kisses as he goes. To chest - furry and broad - nipple - flat and pink and makes Tozer hiss - to his sides, soft, so soft and lush and warm - to hip, concave - a dip which seems sensitive, making Tozer’s leg jump when Ned pulls down his trousers to get at it further.

Tozer shudders, throws back his head and chuckles low in his throat as Ned pulls his cock out into the open air, swollen and magnificent, and shoves his trousers down his thighs.

‘After I got back,’ Tozer says, a skip in his voice as Ned presses his face into the soft curve of Tozer’s belly, lathes the underside with his tongue, ‘I said to myself that I’d never go hungry.’ 

Ned looks up at him, catching his eyes, wrapping his hand around his cock and making sure he sees him do it. Tozer shudders, his hips jumping, and says in a voice that is all ragged, husky want, ‘And yet here I find, I am again.’

Ned puts his mouth on him, and sucks and sucks, that salty slide that makes Tozer groan, low in his throat, and his other hand is frantic on his own trousers, trying to pull out his own aching, dripping cock without breaking his stride on Tozer, who is whimpering now, small sounds that bleed down through Ned like little arcs of heat - and then finally he gets his prick out and grasps it and the tight heat, the tight heat and the friction bleed up into him, and he’s going to lose it, he’s going to lose it here on his knees with Tozer’s cock making his jaw ache, he’s going to spill all over himself, all over Tozer’s thighs and rucked trousers - and then he does, moaning around Tozer’s cock, moaning out his misery and pleasure and that tight, tight heat.

Tozer’s trembling above him when Ned comes back to himself, and he is bracing himself, his hands on Ned’s shoulders, and he gets out ‘Please,’ in a voice little more than breath. Ned sucks him hard and soft, a strong, regular rhythm, and lets his freed hand go between Tozer’s legs to cradle his furred balls - and then he hears him choke, the hands on his shoulders tighten and shake, and Ned puts a hand up to Tozer’s hip to steady him as he bends nearly double and keens out his climax with his face in Ned’s hair.

***

The bed is much too narrow, truly. Tozer takes up most of the mattress; there are knees continually where no knees should be, and muscle and softness. But it is warm, warmer than it has been this last thirteen months.

‘Where do you live, Tozer?’ Ned asks into the dark, meaning, though not wanting to ask, whether anyone is expecting him home this night.

‘Here and abouts,’ Tozers answers. ‘Where I pick up work, mostly. I labour now and again at the dockyards. There are bunkhouses there for the lads.’

‘Oh,’ says Ned. And wonders if there might be space for something better.


	2. Chapter 2

When Tozer had lays his canvas carryall down on the floor by the settee, Ned does not say ‘Is that all?’ 

Nor does he ask directly about the vivid bruise Tozer sports under his eye, or the one visible on his arm just above the wrist, circling it like a cuff. Rising from his book and seat by the fire, Ned helps him off with his coat and taking his arm in his two hands, unbuttons his cuff and slides the fabric back, baring it. It would have taken a very strong man to pin him so - he looks like he was lucky to have avoided a broken arm. 

Ned strokes his thumbs down over it, and Tozer pulls it back, shows Ned his bruised, split knuckles, and says, ‘I had the best of it.’

‘Do you need money?’ he asks. 

Tozer has told him since, that the work he has been doing is ‘such as a man dishonourably discharged might pick up easy enough where rough men crave a little comfort.’ It makes him ache, makes him a little sick and dizzy to think of - not the acts, Tozer seems unruffled by those - but it brings Ned back to the freezing fog, the men hollow-eyed watching him as he read the charges, the loop of the noose like a full stop. 

‘Why? Have you it to give me?’ Tozer’s lips twist wrly, and he goes to sit at the table and busies himself taking off his boots. ‘Nah, Ned. I settled my accounts.’

Ned crosses to him, puts a hand on his shoulder and leans down to look into his face, intending to kiss him. Tozer’s hand comes up to his shoulder, but his eyes meet Ned’s and then skitter away, then come back to meet his, and then flick away again, discomfited. His cheek is swollen; he smells like whisky; his eyelashes very long. 

Ned kisses him, his arm going to rest around Tozer’s neck, his mouth sliding open, and after a few moments of just this, just this gentle ministration, Tozer pulls him down onto his lap. Tozer is breathing heavily, and Ned is hard, straining under his trousers when they break for air. 

‘Are we necking like a pair of turtle doves?’ Tozer asks, and Ned reaches under his jacket and gives a slow pinch to his nipple, making Tozer jerk against him, his arms going around Ned’s back. 

‘Take off your clothes and let me look at you,’ Ned says, in a voice which seems not entirely his own.

***

The set of Tozer’s shoulders tell him more about the man sometimes than his face. 

Something about the set of them the next morning draws Ned’s eye as Tozer gets out of bed to crouch naked on the floor, and pull the ruin of a red jacket from his carryall. It is battered and ripped and filthy, and Tozer carries it stiffly to the wardrobe, like he’s doing something of which he should be ashamed. 

He slides it in, closes it, and puts his back to the door, looking at Ned as if daring him to say something.


	3. Chapter 3

The cold wakes Solomon; the eiderdown has slipped from his shoulders and the freezing, damp tendrils of the pre-dawn air are creeping through his flannel nightshirt. Ned is not beside him. 

He sits up, instantly awake, and scans the shadowy room. Ned’s clothes are hung over the little wooden chair, but the wardrobe is open and his coat is gone.

Solomon’s heart slows when he finds him in the other room, sitting by the exhausted fire, his coat on over his nightclothes, his feet bare. But then he sees the greasy cloth in his hands, his revolver in pieces, his eyes vacant.

Solomon takes the chair opposite, moving slowly and carefully, and Ned’s eyes meets his, then slip away again; there’s an absence, a vagueness in them Solomon doesn’t like, though he seems calm enough, and God knows that isn’t always the case.

He’s had to ease more than one case of Ned’s night terrors by pinning him down until the fit passes, then loosening the hold to let him cry himself out against his neck. And after one night where he’d roused too late to block a fist, Ned had stopped him in the morning just as he was going out and kissed the black bruise in that sweet way he has, letting his face show his regret.

A man could get used to such tenderness. And despite himself, Solomon knows he has.

He’s not certain if Ned is awake or walking in his sleep until Ned says slowly, ‘I couldn’t sleep.’ A laudanum haze, then. Solomon finds he is brewing a poisonous hatred of the little bottle that sits innocently on the bedroom mantle.

‘You’re not easy with yourself, Ned.’ He sits forward. ‘Why?’

Ned looks at him, blinking slowly. ‘Why? I have no reason to be.’ 

‘I’m the one disgraced.’ The words don’t come easy, though he tries to make them look so. ‘The Navy would have you back tomorrow, if you wished.’

Ned looks down, and his fingers loosen on the cloth, the revolver bit in his hands. ‘All my life, I have known my nature. It is… not a bold one. Not decisive, or with any real courage. But I had always tried to set this back in my mind, as just a - a fancy of mine. Some internal lack of assuredness. And I did as I would have done otherwise, had I not _had_ that knowledge, meaning, I suppose, to suppress it. Drown it.’

He lifts his eyes, though they settle somewhere over Solomon’s shoulder. ‘I came up hard against my nature. I - I failed, in so many ways.’ He laughs, a low, sad sound. ‘I can scarcely think of one in which I did not. And in trying to deny my knowledge of myself, in reaching for things I did not - I did not have the capacity for, I let many good men die.’ He rubs his face with his empty hand, putting a smudge of oil to his forehead. ‘I should not have been there.’

There is a long silence, which Solomon does not try to fill, but he does lean over and take Ned’s hand.

Eventually he clears his throat, and says ‘That’s not as I’ve ever thought of you. Either when I knew you as Lieutenant Little, or as I know you now. And Ned - you were not the man in command.’

Ned does not say anything, or move, though Solomon fancies he sees a shine to those eyes that had not been there before. Then he gives a gasp, and his eyes spill over, and he hides them behind his dirty hand. ‘I let him down too.’

Solomon stands, takes the cloth and revolver piece from him, and says, ‘Come back to bed, Ned. I’m getting a chill.’

When he gets him between the covers it is Ned who is more chilled; his feet and hands and cheeks are like ice.

Solomon presses them against his own body and feels the cold bleed slowly into his skin, his mind spinning the action he’ll need to take.


End file.
